Welcome to the Authentiverse Enrollment Program

The Osmio VRD (Vital Records Department) credential is designed to be universal, meaning you can use it to authenticate anywhere. To show what we mean, we’re going to take you through enrollment in a fictitious site for owners of boats.

Your precious asset

So … imagine that you have a boat that costs you a lot of money to maintain and insure. One day down at the marina you find yourself talking to this guy who says he heard about a site that works like AirBnB, only for boats. Just as AirBnB lets you recoup the costs of owning and maintaining a home, Boatshare lets you recoup the costs of owning and maintaining your boat, by renting it to ...

Strangers!

Yikes!

But then the guy says that Boatshare somehow gives you assurance that the person renting your boat is who they claim to be, and that the person’s reputation on the system is tracked using a permanent identity credential. (This contrasts with AirBnB, which is always chasing around using cookies and such to try to figure out whether you’re the guy who trashed that user’s apartment before creating a new account under a new fake identity.)

(What makes boat owners more cautious than apartment owners about renting out their precious asset is that boats are, you know — portable.)

Authenticity™ everywhere

While Boatshare is fictitious, the Osmio VRD identity certificate we’ll produce for you will be very real. It’s designed to be used anywhere. For instance, you’ll be able to use it to digitally sign email messages if your email program supports digital signatures (a sure way to eliminate phishing attacks, once it becomes ubiquitous.) You’ll be able to use it right away to authenticate, and soon you’ll also be able digitally sign things, and manage decryption keys.

So let’s take a trip to Boatshare!